Friday, December 30, 2011

This winter doesn't look that exciting, but hey, there could be some nice surprises. (Madoka Magica and Fate/Zero, anyone?)

01/02

Natsume Yuujin-chou Shi:
The fourth season of a charming series (charming enough for me to get a Nyanko-sensei mug at Animate when I was in Tokyo this past summer) about a boy named Natsume who inherits the book in which his grandmother Reiko wrote down the names of youkai, binding them to her. Subsequently, the youkai whose names are in the book track down Natsume to have him return their names to them.

Still catching up on what has aired. I'm sure the fourth season will be good.

Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama:
An adaptation of the Shin Tennis no Ouji-sama (New Prince of Tennis) manga that serves as a sequel to the original series, about a boy named Ryouma who wants to surpass his father who won four consecutive tennis championships as a pro. PV streaming here.

I'm not into Prince of Tennis, but I'm happy for the fans who are looking forward to more of it.

Kill Me, Baby/Baby Please Kill Me!:
Yasuna tries to make friends with an assassin named Sonya. Sonya mistakens Yasuna's aggressive attempts to befriend her with threatening behavior and keeps trying to kill her in response.

The trailer is really annoying. (Update: More trailers here and here! Thanks to Felix for mentioning them.) Doesn't look like something I'll follow.

Tantei Opera Milky Holmes Dai-Ni-Maku:
The second season of Tantei Opera Milky Holmes, about four girls who are part of a detective agency that tracks down criminals who commit crimes using superhuman abilities.
In the first episode of the first season, the girls lost the "Toys" that granted them their super-detective abilities. I'm not sure what happened after that. Not watching this season.

High School DxD:
Issei attends a mostly female private high school to fulfill his dream of creating a harem. On his first date with his first girlfriend, his girlfriend kills him. He wakes up next to his busty red-haired sempai Rias, who tells him that she is a devil and she revived him as her demonic servant. A few other girls want Issei also. Promos streaming here.

Senki Zesshou Symphogear:
Two girls named Tsubasa and Kanade form a singing duo called Zweiwing. Using weapons called "Symphogear," they must protect the earth from a threat called "Noise." They have two fangirls named Hibiki and Miku (seen at the top of the picture above). PV streaming here. The picture quality sucks, but the official alternative is inaccessible outside of Japan.

This series could be stupid fun (think Cutey Honey), or just stupid. I'll try it. Update:Yuri alert for episode 1, thanks to caitlyn.

Area no Kishi:
Kakeru has no soccer talent, while his older brother Suguru is the captain of the Kamakura High School soccer team and a member of Japan's national under-15 team. Kakeru's life "changes after a tragic accident," which I'm assuming means that Suguru dies and Kakeru plays soccer again in honor of his brother's memory and discovers his hidden talent. PV streaming here.

Brave 10:
A year before the battle of Sekigahara, a ninja named Saizou saves a miko named Nami from being killed by assassins. Tokugawa Ieyasu destroyed Nami's shrine because she sided with Yukimura Sanada. Yukimura gathers super-powered warriors known as the Brave 10 to change history, and as more of the (all-bishounen) Brave 10 gather, Nami's "mysterious power" awakens. PV streaming here.

Moretsu Uchuu Kaizoku:
A high school girl named Marika finds out that her father was a space pirate and she has inherited command of his ship and crew.

This show's title translates as Violent Space Pirates, but its official translation is Bodacious Space Pirates. Its trailer is as hilariously bad as its official English title. At least Bodacious Space Pirates isn't any worse than the title of the light novels this show is adapting: Mini-Skirt Space Pirates.

Zero no Tsukaima F:
The fourth and final season of the Zero no Tsukaima series, about a high school boy samed Saito who gets accidentally summoned to the magical Tristien Academy by a mage named Louise to be her familiar. He isn't what she wanted to summon, but she can't try again, so they're stuck together. Tsundere love blooms. PVs streaming here.

Nisemonogatari:
A sequel to Bakemonogatari, starring Araragi's two younger sisters Tsukihi and Karen.
I didn't care for Bakemonogatari, so I don't see myself getting into this series.
Yuri fans might be interested in returning character Kanbaru Suruga, who identified as a lesbian in Bakemonogatari. She attacked the main character, Araragi, out of jealousy over his girlfriend Senjougahara, who she fell in love with before he ever met her. They resolved things and became friends. (Something similar happens later in Bakemonogatari with a girl who's jealous over Araragi. Same resolution.) Not something that would make me recommend Bakemonogatari in, say, my yuri panel, but she's there for anyone interested. I would be happier with her portrayal if she showed interest in other women (besides Senjougahara) and wasn't treated like another pair of boobs to expand Araragi's harem, but what can you do.
First PV here. The second one is too creepy for me to comfortably link to.

Another:
A horror series about a boy who transfers into a class that's under a curse that leads to "a string of unavoidable deaths."

The premise isn't original, but since when is that a requisite for something being entertaining? I'm actually looking forward to this. Going by the trailers, it could be genuinely creepy in a Jigoku Shoujo or Vampire Princess Miyu way.
Trailers streaming here and here.

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, or Daily Lives of High School Boys. Surpise, it's a slice-of-life comedy about a group of boys who are friends in high school. The most interesting thing about is that it's based on a manga that was serialized online. Extended (really extended) previews can be found here.

Papa no Iu Koto wo Kikinasai!, or Listen to me girls, I'm your father! An adaptation of a light novel series about a university student who becomes responsible for raising his sister's three kids after the plane that his sister and her husband fly in goes missing.

My reaction to this series went from "Aww" to "... *hurl*" when I saw that this series' promotion uses the oldest of the three kids for service. F--- whoever enjoys that. Can we get an anime series about a man raising a child (or children) without any creepiness? (Including creepiness in the material following what's animated/the series' ultimate ending? Yeah, I'm still pissed about the Usagi Drop manga's ending.) Like, say, Yotsuba&?

Inu x Boku SS:
In a high-class apartment building inhabited by the descendants of demons, who each receive a bodyguard, a girl gets a kitsune bodyguard who tells her "I want to be your dog." PVs streaming here.

Thermae Romae: A Noitamina series. An architect in ancient Rome named Lucius gets sucked into a drain while visiting a public bath. After freeing himself and emerging to the surface of the water, he finds himself in present day Japan. He gapes at the similarities and differences between Roman public bathing and Japanese public bathing.

This sounds...different. Doesn't sound like my cup of tea, though. Three flash-animated episodes will make up this series, based on a popular Comic Beam manga. A live action movie based on the same manga will premiere in April.

Background for anyone who doesn't know: Black Rock Shooter started as a character that an artist nicknamed huke drew and posted on his Pixiv account. Ryo, the composer and lyricist for Supercell, a doujin music group that specializes in making songs using Hatsune Miku's voice, created a song inspired by huke's illustration (downloadable here on Supercell's website) and a music video with illustrations huke made for it. (Click the little symbol that's farthest to the right in the bottom-right corner if you don't want to see viewers' comments scrolling across the screen.) huke created more characters, like Black Rock Shooter's horned, scythe-wielding nemesis Dead Master. Most Black Rock Shooter fans are familiar with this popular fan video by a Nico Nico user named Anomaro-P. Black Rock Shooter became a wildly popular homegrown otaku icon, with toys, games, and other merchandise produced based on her, along with two manga series (Black Rock Shooter: Innocent Soul and a 4-koma called Black Rock-chan) and an OVA. And now BRS fans are getting a TV series, which will retell/expand on the OVA storyline. The OVA was about two girls named Matou and Yomi, who are best friends but exist as enemies, Black Rock Shooter and Dead Master, in a parallel dimension. The TV series will include several characters who didn't appear in the OVA. PV here.

The OVA was just okay, but I'm open to being pleasantly surprised by the TV series. I'll give it a shot.

Smile Precure!:
The ninth Precure series. The evil emperor Pierrot (har har) seals away the Queen of magical Marchenland. A mascot named Candy finds five girls and asks them to find the Cure Decor to unseal the Queen.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

I didn't like the Morita-san ha Mukuchi ("Morita-san is Taciturn") OVA. The jokes felt overused, and the writers particularly seemed to think that the two boys who kept drooling over Mayu and her friends were a lot funnier than they actually were.

The Morita-san TV series remedied the OVA's problems by keeping each episode short and sweet at three minutes and focusing almost entirely on the girls' perspectives.

Morita-san ha Mukuchi is about a girl named Morita Mayu, who over-thinks what she says before she can say it- resulting in her never really saying anything. Her friends Miki (the extra-chatty one who is a little boy crazy), Hana (the soft-spoken one who has a bad home life), and Chihiro (the other chatty one who acts as a foil for Miki) don't really mind, since they know that that's just how Mayu is.

You also have the nameless glasses girl who crushes on Mayu from afar and Yamamoto, the cool Class President who has a lot of fangirls. In volumes three and four of the manga, we can see that Yamamoto herself likes girls. As I recently mentioned, I want to see more Morita-san animated just for that. Mayu's parents occasionally show up also. Where their interaction just made me feel bad for Mayu in the OVA, in the TV series, their relationship feels more sweet than bitter.

Each episode focuses on a slice-of-life scenario: the girls figuring out how to beat the summer heat at school, a festival, shopping, Mayu rewarding herself for a good score on a test, a sleepover, the girls taking a part-time job selling Christmas cakes, etc. If you like this type of series, you'll probably enjoy Morita-san since its characters are likeable and have good chemistry as friends. Thankfully, the service is basically nil.

For a light, yuri-friendly pick-me-up, Morita-san is a good bet.

Story: In three minute increments, B
Art: Simple and low budget, but it matches the manga's style. C+
Overall: B

Monday, December 26, 2011

To make a decent-sized list possible, I had to use series that aren't really necessarily yuri, but are of interest to us- a problem that I will not have with my manga list. As Erica pointed out, the pickings this year are really freaking slim. But there's still some good stuff out there. I'm just listing everything I've tried that has come out this year alphabetically.

A Channel made me fall asleep. Not kidding. That's why I never made it past episode 2.

Fate/Zero wins the Most Delicious Subtext award for Saber's suit and her knightliness towards Irisviel, which some may have noticed I like.

Edit @ 9:23 pm: Whoops, accidentally didn't include the following title earlier.

Ga-Rei-Zero on DVD and Blu Ray: A solid pick for the action fan who likes yuri subtext, dubious though it may be. Just make sure to have tissues on hand at the end.

Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere: Malga and Margot win the Best (well, only) Canon Couple of the Year Award. The series that they're in is a piece of crap. Even with a yuri couple in it, I cannot fault anyone for skipping or dropping it. And Malga and Margot don't get very much screen time. (To be fair, Horizon is crammed with characters and most of them don't get any more screen time than Malga and Margot.) But after coolly taking down a flying battle mech in episode 10, Malga and Margot had the only yuri kiss of the year (in front of a sunset, to boot), and it was tender and had actual love behind it. (Fujieda Miyabi likes them too.)

Hourou Musuko is a brilliant coming-of-age series. No magic, no fights, just a cast of likeable people- lgbt (Nitori, Takatsuki, Yuki, Momo, Mako, etc) and not- interacting realistically. This series wins the Show Most Likely To Filter Out People Who Don't Actually Care About LGBT People award. Not to say that not getting into it means that you don't care about lgbt people. But if you meet a non-lgbt person who likes this show, chances are better that they would care about lgbt rights than, say, your average non-lgbt person enjoying the lgbt elements in Kashimashi.

K-ON! on DVD and Blu Ray: Mugi, and a lot of people like slashing the characters.

Koihime Musou seasons 1-3 on DVD: It has a lot of yuri characters. There's a cute canon couple, but they can't really compete for the Best Canon Yuri Couple award because the third (and probably last) Koihime Musou season aired in 2010. I'm not a Sousou fan, but I did like that she outright said that she "only takes women to bed" in that scene with the doctor. How often are yuri characters that plainspoken about being gay, without an "I hate men, icky men are brutes" qualifier, a la Sakura from Kämpfer? Sousou doesn't have anything against men, she just doesn't want to sleep with them. Whatever faults Koihime Musou has, it did that bit right.

Last Exile -Ginkyoku no Fam-: I tried an episode. Aside from the awful opening scene, it was fun, but I didn't stick with it because I was already content with what I was watching at the time.

Mawaru Penguindrum was gripping, intelligent, and frequently poignant to watch, but unlike its older sister Utena, I can't recommend it for its yuri.

Morita-san ha Mukuchi: A cute little show that had some non-obnoxius yuri. The way that Mayu's classmate Yamamoto handled being confessed to by a girl who had one-sided feelings her was nice. If there's one thing that I would be willing to watch another season of this series for, it would be Yamamoto herself admitting that she's gay, which happens later in the manga.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is my Top Yuri Anime of the Year pick. The plot was driven by yuri (won't spoil how), and it was excellent. It doesn't hurt that [spoiler] was an incredible badass in her quest to [spoiler spoiler spoiler]. I expected this series to be kind of lame, but was surprised like almost everyone else by how gripping it became. (Side note: I've shown some anime over the years to my utterly non-otaku dad, like Miyazaki's films, Grave of the Fireflies, Fullmetal Alchemist, Kannazuki no Miko, and Utena- just to share titles that I like and de-mystify my hobby. I showed him Madoka Magica. He was initially intrigued by the crazy visuals, and thought that it was "a terrific show" after I showed him the last episode. Madoka's core base may be hardcore otaku, but it clearly can appeal to people who wouldn't know SHAFT from Gainax and don't know what it's deconstructing.) I was also amused by how similar you-know-who is to a certain character from KnM. I'm looking forward to seeing the alternate direction that the upcoming Madoka Magica movies take.

Revolutionary Girl Utena easily wins Best English-Language Release on DVD or Blu Ray. A yuri classic and one of the best shows ever ever ever, re-released with remastered visuals and audio.

Sengoku Otome had yuri in it.

Sound of the Sky (Sora no Woto) on DVD: As a yuri fan, I had to make soup from stones to see anything in this series. And episode 8 was awful. But as a slice-of-life/war story hybrid with pretty music, it's still enjoyable for me.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

I've been following Danielle Corsetto's Girl With Slingshots webcomic for... wow, 2 years. I first heard about it from an Afterellen article that covered GWS's then-new relationship between one of its leads, Jamie, and a side character named Erin. I started reading it from the beginning and quickly plowed through all four years' worth of strips. It's that addictive. But I should describe what it's actually about, shouldn't I?

Hazel and Jamie are best friends who have just graduated from college. Jamie works in a flower shop while Hazel flails with what to do with her English major. Hazel starts working for a newspaper, but it eventually shuts down and she ends up sharing an apartment with her old boss Thea.

Along with the question of employment, Hazel deals with some bumps in her quest to get laid, but ends up with a really great guy named Zach. Jamie thinks that she's only interested in men until she wakes up naked in bed with the lesbian bartender Angel. She decides to visit a lesbian bar called the Lickety Split, where she sees Thea. This is from when Thea is still Hazel's boss at the paper.

The results of Jamie's experiment are... complicated. Anyway, now Thea's out, and it's still a surprise to Jamie when she falls for Erin.

Jamie and Erin are super-cute together, but since Hazel doesn't know about Erin, she just feels like she's losing Jamie when she keeps making vague plans with "someone else." Even though Hazel isn't homophobic, Jamie has a hard time coming out to her about Erin.

Jamie has to finally come out when Hazel invites her to bring "Aaron" on a double date with her and Zach. So now everything's fine and dandy and Hazel's a supportive friend,

but Jamie still has a hard time figuring out what to label herself for... more complicated reasons.

And Erin has to study abroad for a year in London. At the point where the strip is now, she's returned and she and Jamie are back together after a rocky patch. As adorable as Jamie and Erin are together- and as funny as Jamie's coming out is- because of the aspect of their relationship that makes their love what even Danielle Corsetto calls "quasi-lesbian" (they aren't so big on doing anything beyond kissing), I wouldn't recommend GWS to people looking for a webcomic with a lesbian storyline solely for them. Which leads me to...

Angel and Thea! They have some nice chemistry after they meet,

but alas, don't actually have much in common.

They do break up, but I won't give away how. (*cough*Screw you Angel.*cough*) Now Thea has a new, really sweet girlfriend named Mimi, who will probably be the person Thea winds up with.

And what a small world- Mimi's Angel's ex too.

Yup, two cute couples of lesbian interest. But I like all of the couples: Hazel and Zach, Jameson and Maureen (I have a soft spot for them because they're such a nerdy couple), and Chris and Melody are all great. I was a little afraid that Clarice (another favorite of mine) was going to be paired up with Tucker, the Nice Guy who hangs out at the library where she works, but GWS went the realistic route by quickly making it clear that it's not going to happen. Girls With Slingshots has been running for seven years, but it hasn't lost its steam. If you're looking for a funny webcomic with prominent lesbian characters, you should give Girls With Slingshots a try.

Overall: A

New strips come out every weekday; and wouldn't you know, the latest one features Thea and Mimi.